News

UBL board approves Silkbank merger

The board of directors of United Bank Ltd (UBL) has approved the merger with Silkbank Ltd, UBL informed its shareholders through a filing with the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Tuesday. “We have to inform you that the board of directors of UBL, in its 252nd meeting held on Dec 2, approved the amalgamation of Silkbank Ltd with and into UBL through a share swap arrangement under section 48 of Bankin

OICCI seeks prompt release of refunds

The Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) has expressed grave concerns regarding the alarming backlog of pending income and sales tax refund claims. In a letter to Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Rashid Mahmood Langrial, OICCI Chief Executive and Secretary General M Abdul Aleem said that unresolved refunds had reached a critical threshold, severely impacting the op

Cement sales post meagre increase

Overall cement sales increased by 5.58 per cent to 4.146 million tonnes in November from 3.927m tonnes in the corresponding period last year. As per data of All Pak­istan Cement Manufac­turers Associa­tion (APCMA), local cement despatches were up 2.4pc to 3.342m tonnes compared to 3.264m tonnes in November 2023. Exports also increased by 21.27pc to 803,258 tonnes from 662,374 tonnes. However

17-paisa refund for KE notified

The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Tuesday notified a 17-paisa per unit negative fuel cost adjustment (FCA) for K-Electric consumers. The negative FCA would be adjusted to consumer bills during December. KE had proposed a 16-paisa refund to consumers for September consumption that was increased to Rs0.1758 by the regulator with a net revenue impact of Rs276 million to t

IT industry ‘loses $1m’ due to one hour of net outage

The IT industry has claimed that one hour of internet outage or disruption results in a loss of more than one million dollars for the whole sector, including export businesses. In a media talk on Tuesday, Pakis­tan Software Houses Association (P@sha) Chairman Sajjad Mustafa Syed said authorities have acknowledged that Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) cannot be banned as there was no law to do so